Articles for sale are more appealing when articles are displayed in a neat and orderly manner. Merchandising display shelves are used to enhance appeal by promoting order. Some articles can be arranged neatly in stacks on the shelves, while other articles can be arranged in orderly rows. Unfortunately shoppers have a tendency to topple neat stacks and dishevel orderly rows thereby requiring an attendant to restore order to the articles which is not only time consuming but costly as well. Also, restoring order often places the attendant in a shopper's path creating a nuisance making shopping less efficient. It is desirable to have a merchandising device that helps maintain the articles in an attractive arrangement.
In refrigerator and freezer units in supermarkets and other stores, articles, such as beverage containers for example, are often stacked on wire shelves. It does not take very long for the articles to become disheveled as a shopper removes articles from the rear or as close to the rear as is reachable in an effort to obtain the coldest or freshest container. There are track devices for dividing a wide shelf into narrower channels which help keeps articles in orderly rows. The channels have a fixed width to fit a certain container size and also have a curved front with a diameter to fit a certain container size so that a track device is limited to use with one container size. Accordingly, it will be appreciated that it would be highly desirable to have a display shelf device that has a front stop member with the capability to accommodate different sized containers.
Many shelf devices depend on gravity feed to advance articles forward for removal which is undesirable. There are pusher devices that push articles on a shelf forward for easy removal, but many of these devices inhibit ventilation which is required to keep articles chilled. Some devices only push the articles forward without addressing dividing the articles into rows. Some pusher devices disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,562,217 and 5,634,564 are specifically designed to push beverage bottles forward in a channel limited to one bottle size. Accordingly, it will be appreciated that it would be highly desirable to have a pusher device that pushes a row of beverage containers forward without inhibiting ventilation.